


Like tired kites

by romeinruins



Category: The Social Network (2010)
Genre: Hacking, Introspection, M/M, also some stalking which we’re having complex emotions about, no plot just the concept of getting ready for forgiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:02:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29737746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romeinruins/pseuds/romeinruins
Summary: I changed the locks, but your key - your key's still working.Eduardo, the concept of privacy, and Mark saying a lot without saying anything.
Relationships: Eduardo Saverin/Mark Zuckerberg
Comments: 12
Kudos: 37
Collections: The Prompt Network





	Like tired kites

**Author's Note:**

> Title, quote in summary and concept heavily reference the song 'Matches to Paper Dolls' by the queen of having that one doomed relationship in your early adulthood that still defines you as a person but that you're feeling weird about, Dessa. 
> 
> The reason it exists is the prompt "Hackers" over on The Prompt Network.
> 
> This fic is unbetad and not proofread that well. 
> 
> Also, stalking is creepy don't do it.

People assume Mark never cared.

An easy assumption to make, really.

A wrong one, though.

Mark had cared. He’d cared a lot. Eduardo’d never been under the illusion that all of this was born from a lack of care on either of their sides. 

That’s exactly why it hurt even after all his anger was gone. 

Mark had cared so much, he just had a particular way of showing it. 

Eduardo can’t believe otherwise, even years later. 

It used to be fun, being friends with Mark. Being connected to him, all that entailed. 

Their thing had forged itself fast, upending his life at whirlwind speed, instantly deeper than any of the connections he’d had with friends or classmates in Miami, than anything he’d been able to forge at Harvard before Mark. 

In all of it, it hadn’t been weird that Eduardo had never actually given him his email address, phone number or dorm room number. When Mark had needed them, he’d known them. It felt like they knew everything about each other from the very beginning, the details had merely kept up with the development of their relationship. 

Eduardo’d always been transparent in these things. And it hadn’t hurt him. He had the money to keep the Kirkland suite in takeaway, the time to hang around and occasionally remind Mark that he was a human being with human needs. He had the energy to spare for other people’s dreams when his own seemed lackluster and ill-fitting. 

He had noticed the looks at the time. The whispers. The fact that people'd assumed he was somewhere between cashcow and doormat. It had been okay, though. They hadn’t known the truth of it all. 

He’s not even sure if Mark had seen the pattern he’d started but if Eduardo had one talent, it had always been pattern recognition. 

Mark having access to Eduardo’s email and calendar had been pretty much a given. Computer genius, control freak, the details behind it had never mattered. 

So Mark had been a little noisier in the morning when Eduardo had fallen asleep on his bed and had a morning class to attend. After the fifth well-timed mute wake-up call Eduardo had figured out that nobody actually managed to accidentally have that sort of timing tripping over discarded beer bottles. 

Well, okay, maybe it had been a supremely grumpy Chris asking what the fuck was up with Mark’s sudden early morning clumsiness. 

Eduardo hadn’t said anything. 

Just like he hadn’t said anything about Mark shutting down his computer and suggesting they watch a movie, go to a party, get drunk, play some games, do something every time Eduardo’s father had sent him yet another email demanding updates about connections, grades, internship plans or final clubs. 

Mark had been skittish about admitting he cared. 

Mark had cared, that was the point. 

That had been why, when he’d spent two days locked in his dorm room absolutely miserable and missing the deadline on an essay he’d needed a good grade on, ‘Eduardo’ had written an email detailing a very tragic family emergency to his professor. 

He’d made sure to bring Mark’s favourite takeout and some beer the next time he dropped by the suite. Had left a package of red vines in Mark’s room when he left.

There’d always been a delicate balance to these things. 

It’s how part of him had known something was wrong after Sean showed up. 

His inbox had filled up with spam mail, Mark had stopped texting him when his father called. Slowly, as Sean gained and Eduardo lost importance to Mark, his electronic guardian angel had stopped looking out for him, to the point where he’d had to fish his itinerary for his flight to Palo Alto out of the clutches of his newly overzealous spam filter after a thoroughly embarrassing conversation with the airline’s customer support. 

Mark’s interference with Eduardo’s conversations had become rarer, but more vindictive after the visit after the thing with the accounts. Eduardo'd tried to network in New York and the emails he got back from people who could make or break his future disappeared. When they asked, he laughed it off. You know how it is with emails. When he’d thought about it, he’d remembered that his future was Facebook. That Mark had always been weird about how he cared. That Mark had cared, even if he'd ruined Eduardo’s alternatives in doing so. 

When he’d believed it all would work out, he’d told himself it was okay. He really should’ve known.

After - the party that wasn’t, an outburst, the papers he never should’ve signed, one smashed laptop and destroyed friendship later - the first thing Eduardo did was change all his passwords. 

Then bought a new computer, new phone. 

Changed the passwords again. 

Got a new number. 

Changed everything but his Harvard mail address. 

He drunk dialled admin once and asked about changing that and then realised that his slurred explanation about his ex-best friend’s hacking skills wasn’t going to convince anyone.

He never had any illusion that any of it would help. 

He just blocked Mark’s number and any email addresses related to facebook and hoped for the best. 

It didn’t stick. 

Eduardo changed nothing but somehow, d.moskovitz@facebook.com was perfectly capable of sending him emails.

Eduardo deleted them unread. 

He thought it was just Mark wanting to keep options open. Assumed that was just some stubborn impulse on his part. Like no matter what, Mark would not relinquish his potential hold and wanted Eduardo to know. 

It had never been just that.

* * *

Christi catching him had not been what he expected on the day he handed in his thesis.

“I’ve been trying to reach you but your number doesn’t seem to work,” she'd started.

Why?

“Yeah I changed it, sorry,” a part of his brain had reminded him then that these sorts of lies got him nowhere but into trouble. The more direct parts of his brain always had sounded like Mark. 

“I figured. But then you wouldn’t reply to my emails. I just wanted to catch up," an artful pause. Eduardo'd realised then that the way Christi conducted conversations was calculated more often than not. "I’m sorry for how things ended, you know?”  
  


Eduardo really hadn't known. Or cared. Or wanted to catch up. 

Eduardo also hadn’t seen Christy’s name in his inbox since things ended. He’d been checking all the folders, making sure no important information got overlooked after the thing with the airline. He’d have noticed an email from Christi. There had been none. 

“I’m sorry, really. I have to - you know. I’m sorry for everything but I have to go now. I’m late, you know?” he'd damn near mumbled, patted her arm, and left her behind staring after him as he rushed towards an appointment that hadn't existed. It would take him years to get to the point where he could brush people off. 

She’d shouted after him. He’d walked faster. 

And then he’d checked his inbox again. Checked his filters. Found nothing. 

The only thing that'd stopped him from calling Mark out had been that he had no number anymore to send angry texts to. Eduardo'd taken a second to mourn the chance for catharsis and then gone with the second best and, ultimately, healthier approach. 

To Chris: 

_Is Mark still stalking my inbox???_

_Tell him to fuck off_

From Chris: 

_What?_

_Mark stalked your inbox?_

The thing about having an incredibly close starcrossed best friendship define your life apparently was that even people who'd witnessed the entire thing had no idea what actually went on. 

Entirely useless. 

Eduardo had tried to get a new mail address, sober this time. Harvard’s IT department apparently hadn’t cared that his ex was a stalker who tried to set his apartment on fire. They’d also not acknowledged that his former best friend was a computer genius with no concept of privacy or boundaries. Stalking rarely was a concept applied to cute little asian girls and the 6ft tall guys who were terrified of them and even rarer was acknowledged outside of romantic relationships. 

Then again, Eduardo had always known that very few people had thought processes in which stalking your ex best friend who's suing you for everything you've got to maybe free his inbox of emails by his stalker ex made sense.

At that point he’d accepted that Mark’s shadow would be hanging over him for at least as long as he had a harvard.edu address. For as long as he had the contact information that had been used in the lawsuit. 

Mentally, he prepared for having to explain to all his contacts that yes, he had a new phone number yet again. 

He’d never quite figured out if he’d have preferred Mark not doing whatever he’d done to keep Christy out of his inbox over the paranoia brought on by this. 

* * *

  
  


He doesn’t think about it. He graduates. He does well. He finds a job. He moves to Singapore and attempts to tell himself that the homophobic laws there do not scare him because he’s primarily attracted to women. He tries to tell himself that if Mark showed up naked in his bed he wouldn’t do something illegal and terrible for his mental health.

He’s getting better but he’s nowhere near perfect. He's learning about setting realistic standards for himself.

He tries to make new friends, too, but soon finds out that there really is something magic about the closeness of college friendships, that doing so when you’re working more than 50 hours a week is harder than it looks. Especially when you don’t actually like your colleagues that much. 

Singapore is beautiful and full of people. It’s more futuristic than anything he’s ever seen. It’s full of opportunities for Eduardo to become exactly what he’s supposed to be. 

He wonders if Mark’s still reading his private email. Does he know his father’s less demanding these days? Does he know Eduardo barely replies to his emails? Does he know Dustin and Chris still send him emails sometimes? Chris more often with updates on his life, on what he’s doing, on the mundanities of everyday life in the states. A sometimes-fraught and always grounding patter of words. Dustin writes on birthdays and holidays and occasionally to send Eduardo photos or videos or memes of chicken. 

Eduardo can find it in him to read them now. Sometimes he even replies. 

Does Mark check his work email? The one where sometimes, the advice he gives new startups feels suspiciously like Sean Parker? The one where sometimes, he talks to that one colleague he kinda likes and they both complain about how some days, seeing yet another spreadsheet makes them contemplate suicide? Does he know that, even at the worst of it, even rushing from refusal to refusal trying to get Facebook some money, he’d never have talked about his work that way?

Youth and adrenaline, they’re powerful. 

Sometimes, he gets hints of Mark’s presence in his digital life. 

Lena’s one of the few people he considers something like a friend in Singapore. They used to work in the same office. He’s pretty sure the girl she says is her roommate is actually her girlfriend. Nobody making their sort of income lives with a roommate for no reason. He thinks she suspects that the best friend from college he sometimes mentioned was an ex. Things have never been that clear-cut with Mark, but Lena and him are birds of a feather and they flock together. 

“Hey Eduardo,” she says one time, empathetically gesturing with her half-empty cocktail glass of something that contains no alcohol but more vitamins than some people he could name consumed in an entire year of university. “You know the internet stuff right?”

Turns out, when you’ve gotten very rich very young by helping start one of the most successful online businesses in the world ‘the internet stuff’ becomes your specialisation no matter what. 

He knows the internet stuff. He’s a shareholder in internet stuff. He can’t afford not to keep up with internet stuff even if he sometimes considers moving to the middle of nowhere and attempting to start a farm where he hand-raises chickens in incredibly humane ways to repair that one bit of his tarnished reputation he genuinely minds. 

“Depends. Why?”  
  


Lena is a very mobile speaker. She gesticulates a lot and emphatically shakes her head before she starts talking again. “No but you’re supposed to know this. Ads. Online ads. Why are they still so stupid?”

“Are they?” Eduardo feels a bit weird about this. On the one hand, there’s everything that led to him being here and not in Palo Alto, working at the headquarters of the company he helped build up from the university servers up, on the other, he’s still shareholder in that company, a company that is the best in the world at targeted, smart advertising. On the other other hand, there’s the other thing. 

“Well they sure as fuck wouldn’t be showing me ones for viagra if they weren’t. Look at me, Eduardo, really. Look at me!” She waves her hands up and down her upper body. Eduardo’s glad she’s put down her drink. He can see her point. Her cleavage is impressive. “Do I look like someone who needs viagra?” 

She doesn’t. She’s good looking, has a coherent taste in fashion. She always dresses well but there’s something about the way she does it that makes it very clear that she’s not doing so for the male gaze. Eduardo wishes he’d ever learned not to wear clothes as a way to hold up someone’s expectations of him. Maybe he wouldn’t have ruined so many button ups with pizza sauce back at Harvard. 

“Uh, no?”  
  


“Yes!” she exclaims. “That’s because I really, really don’t. But my boss now thinks that’s who I am. Can you imagine the looks I’ve been getting?”  
  


Turns out Lena’d been looking for gifts to mail back home for a cousin’s baby shower. There’s the requisite complaining about moving thousands of miles away from your family and still not getting out of these things. Eduardo commiserates. Then she explains that apparently some websites are terrible at targeting their ads and that, sometimes, your boss shows up behind your back faster than you previously assumed he’d be capable of moving. That from now on, her boss is going to believe that of her. 

Eduardo mock-chides her for not doing her actual job at work. But then his brain comes back to the other other hand of his thoughts on online advertising. 

Eduardo hasn’t seen an ad while browsing since roughly 2001. He hasn’t gotten spam email since. Well, he suspects he knows exactly since when. Times when Mark had been really angry at him excluded.

His current laptop is a few devices removed from the last one Mark had ever touched. He’s changed mail addresses a few times since Harvard. Mark hasn’t been interfering since Eduardo had stopped attempting to blacklist all emails from facebook. At least not in a noticeable way. Thinking about it, the lack of online annoyances is the first sign that yes, Mark is still somewhere in there sometimes, that Eduardo is still someone he thinks of. 

He wonders if this is like when Eduardo gets home drunk at the end of the night and calls up Mark’s Facebook profile. When he checks if his Wikipedia page has been changed. When he looks for him in the news and sees a PR consultant’s careful hands all over every statement. Back when Chris still worked at Facebook, he’d been able to spot his writing style all over the things Mark wished he didn’t have to say, could almost make out what his actual opinion underneath it all was.

He wishes sometimes that Mark being as unable to let go of what they had as he is felt less reassuring, but he sometimes sees Mark’s touch in the way his inbox is never too cluttered for him to get it to zero, in how he never gets viruses no matter what he does, in the way his devices just listen to him through no ability of his own. People say he’s lucky that way, assume that some of Mark’s preternatural talent with technology had rubbed off on him and then see him struggle with anything but using his own laptop and immediately reevaluate their view.

It’s weird. That the same person who stabbed him in the back so thoroughly is also the silent guardian of all his tech again.

Eduardo tells Lena something about how clearly, whoever is attempting to sell viagra to her is incompetent. He suspects she notices how distracted he is for the rest of the meal. 

The thing is, it’s been a long time but there are two things about Mark Zuckerberg that he is absolutely sure about. 

  1. He doesn’t suffer fools gladly.
  2. He doesn’t waste any of his time on things he considers unimportant. Maybe he’s making exceptions to this rule for meals by now, but he certainly wouldn’t to fuck with Eduardo.



The conclusion - because Mark’s brain may not work like most people’s, and part of Eduardo will always be infinitely fascinated with it - is that Mark cares. Somewhat. Somehow. 

This doesn’t make things less confusing. 

Research is in order.

Technically, he could ask Chris, but Chris likes asking questions when people reconnect and interrogate him about someone they don’t talk to and can’t stand being in a room with anymore. 

Dustin‘s always been more of a go with the flow kind of guy. The jaded voice that’s been loud and clear in the back of his mind since - well yeah - reminds him that Dustin even went with the flow when the flow was all about stabbing Eduardo in the back. However, he can be a remarkably target-oriented person these days. Dustin it is. 

Eduardo’s learned to be less obvious about some things though, so he goes and finds the funniest video featuring a chicken he can. 

  
  
  


To: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Your unhealthy fascination

_Hey,_

_Someone sent me this and since it seems like you can’t get over your chicken thing I thought I might as well forward it._

_https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lKutMXJ4MHo_

_You’re welcome,_

_Eduardo_

  
  


He makes the extra effort to delete his regular signature, which features both his full name - a needlessly formal thing - and his phone number - something Dustin certainly doesn’t need. 

From the way Dustin tells it, his chicken thing came from Sean being absolutely obsessed with whatever chicken-based terrible thing Eduardo had apparently done in college that Mark had been around for. Apparently, after the incident with the smashed laptop, Sean had obnoxiously needled Mark, Dustin and Chris about the whole thing. Eduardo suspects it’s one of the many, varied reasons Chris hates him so much. Apparently, the things Dustin has been sending him are a careful selection made from the deluge of chicken-based terrible internet jokes and teasing about secret knowledge he’s been sending Sean for years. 

Eduardo hopes the video he linked ends up in Sean’s inbox. 

  
  


From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

Re: Your unhealthy fascination

_Finally!_

_Finally I get an email from you that’s not just a reply and it’s YOU implying that MY relationship with chicken is unhealthy??_

_YOU, Wardo?_

_It’s excellent chicken content thank whoever sent it to you for me._

_Seriously, today’s been a mess you’re making things a lot better._

_Gotta go now before he himself finds out I’m wasting my office hours talking to you of all people._

_Talk to you if I survive today_

_Wish me luck,_

_Dustin_

Usually, Dustin doesn’t mention Mark, or even hint at his existence. However, it seems like Eduardo’s attempt at figuring out what the hell is going on in Mark’s head is blessed with luck this time around. He’s not sure that’s a good thing.

  
  
  


To: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Re: re: Your unhealthy fascination

Attachments: evidence.jpg

_Dustin,_

_For some reason I haven’t deleted your ridiculous chicken emails. Here’s a screenshot of what happens when you look for the word chicken in my inbox._

_This is not healthy._

_But then again, your work environment doesn’t seem to be, either. Are we being sued again? Should I be worried?_

_Please send a sign of life,_

_Eduardo_

So. Maybe he can’t quite stop worrying about them all. There’s nothing objectively wrong with being worried for his former friends’ health. 

  
  


From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

Re: re: Your unhealthy fascination

_I hope you noticed that there haven’t been any headlines about mass murder in the facebook headquarters. Trust me, we were this close to a battle royale type scenario._

_  
_ _We’re also not being sued. Technically, everything’s fine._

_It’s just Mark. Can I mention Mark? He’s been very good about things for a while but he’s being very him nowadays. We hired lots of new people recently and apparently we got lax about preparing them for it._

_It’s good we’re this lenient with our minions otherwise. They’d start the glorious revolution and I can’t be sure what side I’d be on._

_I wish you could send pizza. Or alcohol._

_Both are better when I don’t have to buy them._

  
  


He reads the email less than a minute after Dustin sent it. The whole thing isn’t letting him go and it’s messing with him. If Eduardo still were who he had been at Harvard, he’d see what delivery services around Facebook headquarters let you order online and get Dustin some surprise pizza. 

Sometimes, he remembers being that person better than he’d like to. 

Instead, he goes for the next best thing and orders himself some. 

The next email he sends Dustin only contains a selfie with the pizza and the sentence _Yeah I know I’m great at ordering food._

Dustin shoots back with a string of chicken gifs and something about his eternal hatred for Eduardo. 

Eduardo should never have attempted to join the Phoenix. 

He should’ve resigned himself to hopeless, antisocial nerdhood. 

He’s not sure how to proceed from this point to “Hey Dustin, you think Mark’s still reading along every single email I ever send or read?” when Mark apparently does the job for him. 

  
  
  


From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

This might sound weird but…

_Meu caro Eduardo_

_I really don’t want to but I have to ask you this. Are you secretly talking to Mark again?_

_You can totally tell me. I won’t pry for more. Or judge. Or be weird. Or send too many exclamation marks in my reply._

_He just mentioned our conversation the other day. It was weird._

_We may or may not have been drunk. Come to think of it, this may have been a drunk hallucination. If it is, don’t read too much into it. You’re totally free to freeze him out for the rest of your lives. Or to talk to him. Or to exclusively insult and prank him. Whatever works for you._

_Please tell me if it was a drunk hallucination._

_Your very confused friend,_

_Dustin_

Proof. There it is. 

Of course Eduardo hasn’t talked to Mark. And it could be that Mark’s just keeping tabs on Dustin’s emails, but. No. He knows. 

If Mark’s keeping track of Dustin’s emails it’s exclusively the ones that feature Eduardo. 

He hopes the bastard’s enjoying the goddamn chicken. 

The thing is, Eduardo just got back home from dinner with Lena and her ‘roommate’. This time, the fruity drinks had definitely contained alcohol. 

He’s sure he would be feeling more than just vindication otherwise. 

  
  


To: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Re: This might sound weird, but… 

_To whom it may concern_

_I haven’t been talking to Mark. I think we both know I haven’t been. It’s actually possible all three of us do._

_Dustin: Do you know any promising startups in encrypted communication of any kind? I have some leftover settlement money to invest in a good cause._

  
  


He knows end-to-end encryption wouldn’t help much if Mark has actually hacked his phone too the way Eduardo suspects he has, but he has a point to make here. 

Eduardo knows he’s supposed to actually tell Mark off. Mark is being creepy and crossing his boundaries and being an asshole and all that. He often is. He should probably be angrier about this than he is. Mostly, he’s feeling vindicated at having caught him out.

  
It’s just. It’s Mark. It if were anyone else he’d do so. Threaten legal action if he had to. But it’s Mark. 

It’s Mark and it’s irrefutable proof that… well, it’s proof of something.

Mark’s still reading his emails. Mark’s still giving him world’s best spam filters. Mark made the internet ad-free for him. He strongly suspects Mark still occasionally checks his computer for viruses simply because he never gets any.

Normally, if you understand the logic Mark operates on, every single action of his makes complete sense. Looking at it from a distance, even the dilution did.

This doesn’t. 

If a+b=c and and a = Mark and Eduardo used to be best friends in a way that possibly transcended what most people thought of as best friendship and b = Mark and Eduardo had hurt each other in increasing intensity in a way that is unforgivable and catapulted their friendship past the point of no return then c = them avoiding all interaction or reminders of each other whenever possible. 

Now Eduardo has always thought that the assumption behind b was a bit off on his side. He’d spent too much of the depositions waiting for Mark to ask for forgiveness, hoping for an apology. He still spends too much time analysing whatever information he can get on him and trying to figure out if Mark is a person worth forgiving for it to quite work out. But usually, if he rounded things the right way and wanted everything to work, he’d get to the result he hoped for.

Now instead what he’s getting is a+b=w. W for „what the fuck, Mark?“ W for „When did my translator for Mark logic stop working?“ W for „What the hell am I supposed to do with this?“

Thing number 3 about Mark that he’s absolutely sure of: When he decides he wants to do a thing, he does it thoroughly. 

Eduardo isn’t a complete idiot. He knows he isn’t. He also knows that the logical conclusion to this is that b is wrong and should be replaced by some other variable because Mark may actually still care about Eduardo in some way and possibly might want to have something to do with him in a forgiveness sort of way

Well, ignoring a significant amount of things that happened between them. The dilution and everything after that. The depositions back when every day, he’d actually been expecting something from Mark and never gotten it.

As it is, Eduardo is 90% sure he’s overlooked a variable there. a+b*x=w in which x completely explains why Mark still thinks Eduardo’s private life is a thing he wants to spend time on. 

He wakes up bleary and hungover the next day. When memories of last night’s emails come back to him, he adds mortification to the pile of annoying-to-terrible things he’s feeling right now, takes a shower, makes some coffee, scrambles some eggs in true hangover breakfast tradition and apprehensively gets ready to check for a reply from Dustin. He avoids wondering if Mark himself replied now he’s been caught. Meaning, of course, that it’s nearly the only thing he’s thinking about. 

Of course Dustin had replied straight away last night, when it must’ve been something resembling working hours in the States.

From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

Re: This might sound weird but…

_Wardo why are you not more shocked????_

_Wait a second…_

_Is this like when you basically told Chris Mark was cyberstalking you years ago?_

_And then you ghosted him when he asked for more info?_

_Because. Really?_

_Really?_

_I’m not surprised he did it back when WE were at Harvard, he always knew more about you than someone with his communication skills should’ve. But._

_He kept doing it??_

_He’s in a meeting right now but I’m going to have a Talk with him later._

_Your worried friend,_

_Dustin_

Damn. Dustin is an observant friend with a good memory after all. No matter how little he likes showing it. An hour after that one, another one. 

From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

That bastard

_He disappeared!!!_

_WARDO HE DISAPPEARED ON ME_

_Why is he like this?_

_Why am I still working for him?_

_MARCUS I JUSR WANNA TALK_

  
  


The next three emails are swearing and frustrated keysmashes. The last one looks like Dustin fell asleep on his laptop waiting for Mark to come back to the office, but that’s just an educated guess.

Eduardo wishes that mental image didn’t flood him with fondness. 

If he could just let go of these people, build a life here and never remember how he made his money. 

He’d be feeling awfully empty.

To: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Subject: Re: That bastard

_Since when is his name Marcus? It’s Mark in all the papers we signed but then again, I’m certainly not the one in this conversation who’d hack someone’s birth records to find out their full name._

_Please tell me he didn’t kill you. Chris would make me help avenge you and I really don’t want to deal with the jetlag._

  
  


From: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

To: you

Subject: I LIVE  
  


_You look at that guy and tell me he doesn’t have delusions of emulating a roman emperor. He’s grown on me. Like a fungus. But. Well, you’ve met him. One day, he’s gonna get stabbed 23 times by people who were supposed to be working for him._

_You think I should hire a taste tester?_

_Imagine the headlines if I did._

_I haven’t caught him yet. Do you want me to tell him anything beyond “Fuck off and leave me alone?” I will._

_PS: You’d help avenge me?? AWWWWWWWWW Wardo I didn’t know you cared._

The fact that Dustin is still living and breathing and painlessly accessing the facebook servers to use them for emails badmouthing Mark probably says something about Mark having grown. Or Mark being too busy and having lost interest. 

Once upon a time he’d thought he could trust his judgement of what Mark meant when he did things. 

It had been easy. 

He’s unsure what to tell Dustin. 

Mark’s been doing this for years now, apparently. Even through… everything. And after. Eduardo’s suddenly certain he’s never really stopped. Because he’s never gotten another mail or text from Christy. Because he’s never gotten hacked. Because he’s sure someone would’ve attempted to do that at least to his Facebook by now. Because he himself is stupidly lax about his security online and has a lot of money and yet nothing ever happened. 

Eduardo makes another coffee and sits there, in this stylish, modern flat he bought from more because money in a bank account never gains value but property does than because he loves the place. Really, he doesn’t even like it much. It has no personality at all and Eduardo’d spent an inordinate amount of time in Kirkland for someone who had his own single because of how much more homey the place had felt. The height of modern comfort had never been his top priority.

When was the last time he’d ever felt at home anywhere?

Eduardo takes a sip of his coffee and stares at his laptop and the phone lying next to it. 

Nothing happens. 

Another sip of coffee. Back to glaring at the laptop.

No answers appear, fully formed, in his brain. 

Eduardo sighs heavily, pockets his phone after checking his emails again, and goes for a walk.

It should be easy, right?

Tell Dustin to tell Mark to fuck off and keep staying away. Ignore that this ever happened. Move on with his life. Maybe make more than two friends in this country. Try and see if he can find anyone he likes but doesn’t work with. Take care of his own goddamn spam filters and whatever else Mark has his fingers on, because if Dustin and Chris, who Eduardo knows is informed of the situation by now even if he’s not with Facebook anymore, tell Mark to leave it, he might actually listen. 

He could just move on. 

He could, but he’d never find out what x is. 

His hand curls around the phone in his pocket. He’s been one of those terrible people absolutely glued to the thing since his ill-fated attempt to garner support for Facebook in New York, when he’d checked it frantically every time he got off the subway and back into an area with reception for news from Palo Alto. 

It’s a habit that suits his reputation as someone who understands digital media. 

On his more maudlin days, he considers it vestigial from back when it was the lifeline connecting him to what made sense in his life, what he cared about. 

If Dustin found that out, would he make an ET joke?

It’s not like Eduardo really has a home to call.

Maybe that’s why he’s so reluctant to tell Mark off, to make Dustin help him enforce some boundaries. Harvard, before everything, had been one of the incredibly rare periods in his life where he’d actually felt like he belonged somewhere. What if that somewhere else had been other people’s drafty dorm suite? What if it had been by the side of someone he now should by all rights cut out of his life forever? What if that person hurt him worse than anyone else had ever managed? 

(A traitorous part of his brain gives him a series of all the times his father had made clear how little he had loved his only child. Can Mark really measure up to years of that?) 

Eduardo’ŕeally wishes he hadn’t quit smoking. That was a terrible idea and really who cared about the smell? He’s in finance, people like him are supposed to have way worse habits. 

Still, here he is, walking down random streets in his shiny new hometown, craving nicotine because his brain sucks at situations like this with Dustin probably having spammed his inbox in the meantime.

Has Chris been dragged into this yet?

Eduardo does take out his phone then, opens a chat he hardly ever uses. The last messages are _Happy Birthday, have a good one!_ followed by _Thanks, I am!_

When did he start capitalising and punctuating texts to anyone but business contacts? Who the fuck uses commas in a text? 

Apparently Chris and him, nowadays. 

_I think I’m going insane_ , he sends.

Thank whatever god there may be because Chris actually replies quickly. Do any of these people sleep? Or have a life? Eduardo remembers what Chris does for a living and how the 24/7 news cycle exists. It’s a safe bet he doesn’t.

_Are you the reason Dustin is begging me to hire him?_

_For the record I know better than to do that._

_We both know Mark would kill whoever gave Dustin a job outside of fb_

_So we’re talking about him?_ This is why he didn’t initially want to talk to Chris. Chris asks questions.

_He may be the cause of my insanity_

_Figures_

What?

_What?_

_It’s you and Mark. You’ve never been quite sane about each other_

_Excuse me?_ _  
  
_

_He ignored you so you took away all his money_

_And in revenge he took away your company_

_And then you sued him for a billion dollars._

Eduardo’s somewhat aware of what all of it had probably looked like from the outside. 

_It looked more reasonable from the inside?_

_What’s he done now?_ He can practically hear Chris’ sigh. Okay, that’s a reasonable reaction. 

_I could leave him behind forever_ , he sends. What Mark is doing isn’t the point. How Eduardo reacts is. 

_That’s… growth?_ They’ve talked a bit, Chris and him back at Harvard, as the half of the quartet left behind, when Eduardo had been too tired, too drunk, too depressed to be angry at him for still having the other two. He remembers telling Chris how much he just wished for the whole mess to be over, to leave and never have to look back. He’s sure of all of them Chris would’ve been the one who’d have understood and respected if Eduardo had told him he couldn’t be friendly with him because of what exactly it was that connected the two of them.

He’s left. He doesn’t really have reasons to look back. 

He keeps catching himself doing it nevertheless. 

_I said I could. Didn’t say I wanted to_

Chris takes too long for the reply he ends up sending. 

_Do you?_

He still ends up asking the million dollar question. 

_I don’t know. It would be easier. I’m supposed to._

_And I was supposed to marry a nice southern girl and learn a normal job. Now I’m gay, living in sin and working for a black guy._

_What do you want?_

Eduardo stops in his tracks, another guy in fancy clothes staring at his phone in the middle of the sidewalk. 

He wants. He wants something. He wants the way Mark had looked at him when he knew Eduardo was about to share good, exciting news. He wants the way Mark had asked questions when Eduardo had explained why the weather was changing this rapidly. He wants Mark’s thoughts racing ahead of his mouth and the way it made him trip over words sometimes. He wants to not have to explain himself to people anymore. He wants the people around him to effortlessly know him, because they’d been there for most of what made him. 

Eduardo wants to not feel lost, to not feel like part of him has been missing and the Boston winter chill had settled into the empty spaces it had left behind. He wants a direction and a purpose and the sound of hectic typing in his ear as he goes about his day. 

_I want a time machine_

_Can we stay in the realm of things that are physically possible please?_ Eduardo’s not sure what Chris has done to deserve being part of this conversation. He’s not sure what he himself has done to be part of this.

_I don’t want to_

He pockets his phone and looks up, places himself back on the local map in his head. 

He’s not far from his apartment. Looks like he’s been going in circles. 

Really, what he wants is to solve for x. 

To: Dustin <d.moskovitz@facebook.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Subject: Call off the hounds

_It’s okay. Well. It’s not okay. But can you leave it for now?_ _  
_ _  
_ _I’ll deal with it._

Dustin sends back the same gif of a perplexed-looking chicken ten times over. Then he sends Mark’s actual contact information.

  
  


There’s an empty draft open in Eduardo’s email program. 

Its cursor blinks at him accusingly. 

Eduardo blinks back, unsure if he can deliver what it expects of him. 

Maybe that is more personality than he should be giving an empty email. 

To: Mark <mark@mzuck.com>

From:e.saverin@gmail.com

Subject: 

_Mark,_

_I strongly suspect that you’ll end up reading this whether I send it or not. It takes someone other than me to make anything stored on a computer truly safe from you._

_I really hope for the sake of my own sanity that you reading the emails between Dustin and me was less of a commonplace occurrence than I fear. I should be allowed to talk to my friends without you looking over our shoulders. Yes, even if they’re also your friends. Even if they were your friends first._

_By all rights and with everything that happened, we should continue to ignore each other for the rest of eternity. You shouldn’t stalk my emails, I should be feeling something very different from what I’m feeling over the fact that you’re still running long-distance tech support for me._

_“Should”s have never been your speciality and I’m starting to suspect they fit me less well than I thought they would._

_I don’t know what I’m doing here. I feel like we’re finally old enough to admit that sort of thing._

_I can’t promise anything, but maybe, if it’s possible we’re on the same page, you should call me._

_I’m going to give you some plausible deniability. My number’s +xxxxxxxxxxxxx._

_Talk to you soon,_

_Eduardo_

The next day, just when he hangs up his suit jacket and puts on some comfy house slippers, his phone rings. It’s an American number and Eduardo’s pretty sure Mark double checked either his calendar and commute times or his phone’s location data to pick a good time to call. 

A year ago, he still would’ve let the thing go to voicemail. Just because he’d have thought Mark deserves that sort of feeling. 

He’d like to say it’s because he’s outgrown pettiness and maybe he has. The most important part is, though, that Eduardo feels lost. Feels like there’s been something missing from him for years, feels like, maybe, if he keeps letting this thing between him and Mark be the way it is, it’ll eat the both of them alive from the inside out. 

He picks up, solves for x.

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Everyone in this fandom has to write this type of fic at some point it’s the rules 
> 
> Meu caro Eduardo apparently means My dear Eduardo in the way Sherlock Holmes says "My dear Watson" thanks dict.cc for that one. 
> 
> I have no idea if the internet back then had that much chicken-related meme content, but really my life has spiralled out of control I'm not researching the historical accuracy of chicken memes. 
> 
> I also know nothing about hacking, but I know to some IT folks, providing tech support is a love language. 
> 
> Thank the lovely folks at thereccenter for this fic's existence because they recced a tsn fic weeks ago and I've been kinda fucked up since.


End file.
